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by Viking_woman



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Post-Canon, feelings are hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 21:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18599593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viking_woman/pseuds/Viking_woman
Summary: He misses her, just not more than he fears belonging.





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> I finished the book and I immediately had a story pop into my head. So here it is.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Agnieszka has only just woken, halfway out of her bed. He is standing in the doorway, impeccably dressed. The deep green brocade coat is out of place in her cabin, but the color matches her bedspread. She snorts, and runs her hand though her hair. It only seems to tangle it further.

“I – I only came to collect the taxes. I need to head back.”

He stares out the door, his back rigid. She comes to stand beside him. The grass in front of them is covered with wildflowers, tiny stars in yellow, white and purple. They weren’t there yesterday, before their lovemaking.

“Sarkan,” she says, all fire and smoke and scales in her mouth.

“I apologize. This… I’m not… You should find another lover. Someone more appropriate.”

He still isn’t looking at her.

“More appropriate. What did you have in mind? Some village boy who wants to marry a witch? Maybe a farmer? A baker? I’ll fix the Wood and cook his meals? Is that what you want me to do?”

“No,” he says, fiercely.

She wants to shake him. She knows why he isn’t staying, why he is running away. He is not going to say it, though. She dresses in her homespun dress and smock, and she picks up her basket.

“You could have sent me a letter, you know.”

She walks past him.

“Agnieszka.”

She’d been so happy to see him, yesterday, but she should have known. She is still happy, of course. He came and he sat in the village, and he held her hand. He’d let her take him to her home and to her bed, and she had missed him terribly and now she misses him less.

“Do you want to see what I’ve been doing, before you leave?”

“I’m guessing it’s both improbable and dangerous.”

“Come, then.”

* * *

He does send letters then. They’re terse and factual, notes of his workings in Krasia and terribly boring politics.

She writes him back, and tells of the babies who are born, and the pies she bakes and the corruption she clears. She tells of Kasia’s visit at midwinter, and Stashek’s and Marisha’s laughter.

He sends her a worn book one day, a recounting of Jaga’s life he discovered in the Charovinikov. It isn’t accurate, he writes, but you might still find it interesting. It doesn’t contain any of her workings or spells, though it wouldn’t surprise me if you found a way to turn day into night or something similarly inappropriate, just from notes on where she lived.

She can feel his indignation, and it makes her smile.

She writes him back and thanks him. She knows it will infuriate him that she doesn’t tell if she found a new spell or not, and she imagines him, in a fancy chair in the castle, frowning when he reads.

Her ink drips onto the paper while she thinks of him, her pen hovering. She wipes it off and the corner looks all smeared, but it’s still legible. When its dry, she carefully folds it. The next time she goes to Olshanka she will find someone to send it, along with the letter she has already written to Kasia.

* * *

It’s high summer when Sarkan comes back again. The bees are busy, and the air is warm and a little stale, the sunlight filtering through the dark green leaves of her oak. The Spindle is lower and the water fuller of power.

His letters have given no indication that he would come, but one day he is there, dark eyes and dark coat and silver buttons, in her doorway.

“Your hair is longer,” she says.

“You’re criticizing my appearance?”

“Merely observing.”

She can’t help the smile on her face, and she wipes her hands on her dress. She was baking, and there is flour in her hair. He steps forward at the same time she does, without hesitation. He kisses her, or she kisses him, and there is no room between them.

“I can’t stay,” he says, when they break apart.

“You came back twice, within the year. It’s not dangerous to have roots, Sarkan.”

“I’ve no idea what the consequences would be. Neither do you. The power here is still dangerous, and still unknown.”

There is no neat theory or logical diagram or careful measurements, so it scares him. She is too happy to roll her eyes at him.

“You’re here now.”

“Your stubborn refusal to repair the tower means I’ll have to do it.”

She smiles wider.

“How long will you stay?”

“A month, or so. Just to make sure everything in order.”

“Kiss me again,” she says.

Her cabin suits her, here in the woods, and she has come to terms with having to pester Sarkan over letters. She can’t force him to stay. Maybe one day, a month will turn to two, and two will turn to a year. Right now, she tells him the repairs can start tomorrow, and her pie can wait, and she takes him to her bed.

The tower is mostly repaired when he leaves a month and a half after, pulling his roots up the dirt and her heart out her chest.

* * *

The seasons come and go, fall and winter and spring again. Sarkan visits for midwinter, and leaves two weeks later. He looks tired, like the pull of the land and push of his stubbornness wages an unnecessary war.

Kasia and the children and a whole section of the royal guard comes in spring, just as the apple trees start to bloom, and Sarkan comes with them.

He means to live in his tower again, for the duration, but soon Kasia and the royal retinue leaves for Krasia without him, and her bed is a little wider, and her cabin has acquired an extra room. It’s a small study, lined with bookcases. A warm rug of red wool covers the wooden floor, which was grown from the tree’s roots. Sarkan isn’t here every day, but it’s often enough.

He had gone to see to his potions yesterday, and now the Wood tells her he is on his way back. She hums, hurrying him along, and soon enough he is in her doorway. He doesn’t enter, though.

“I went to see your mother last night.”

“Oh?”

“I went to ask her – that is, I – she said it wasn’t her call, of course, but I thought I should ask.”

“What? Are you alright? Here hold this.” She hands him a bag of soil. She had to remove a whole a whole pocket of corruption last night, when she found it. He had to dig deep and remove the bad soil, disintegrating it. It left a hollow, and she think it’s better if something is put back, so she found some better soil. She hands him another bag, and picks up a third.

“What is this? You know there are cantrips for carrying things?”

“I never liked them.”

“You’re impossible.” Sarkan puts the bags down. “Agnieszka. Will you marry me?”

She drops her own bag, and the dirt spills everywhere.

“You asked my mother if you could marry me?”

“Kasia said it was the way in the valley. I thought it would be best to do it properly.” He is flushing, heat creeping into his cheeks and downwards, under his stiff collar. He looks ridiculously neat. “I understand if you’re not – if it’s not –”

“Yes.” She leaps into him. “The answer is yes.”

The dirt forgotten, he breathes her name, and it’s earth and Spindle water and growing things, and his arms are solid around her. He weaves a little magic, and she answers with a hum while they’re kissing, feeding her power to his. She pulls back to look him in the eyes.

“Welcome home, Sarkan.”


End file.
